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TRANSFE 

DOCUME 
AUG 3 1911 



Meeting of the Bench 
and Bar in Honor 
of the late Judge 
Charles E. Phelps 

IN SUPERIOR COURT ROOM, 
JANUARY 11, ATI P. H. 



Memorial services were held in the 
Superior Court Room yesterday, at 1 
P. M., in honor of the late ex-Judge 
Charles E. Phelps. The court room 
was crowded with members of the 
bar, court clerks, friends and rela- 
tives of tbe deceased. Every 
member of the Supreme Bench 
was present, as were also Judge 
Schmucker, of the Court of Ap- 
peals, Judge Morris, of the United 
States District Court, and ex- 
Judge Wickes. —From The Daily Record 
January 11th, 1909. 



Mr. BERNARD CARTER, Chairman 
of the Committee appointed by the 
Supreme Bench, reported and read 
the following Memorial Minute: 

A MEMORIAL OF THE HON. CHARLES 

E. PHELPS BY THE BAR OF 

BALTIMORE CIT\ . 



Hon. Charles E. Phelps, for more 
than twenty-five years a Judge of the 
Supreme Bench of Baltimore city, 
died at his home in Walbrook on the 
morning of December 27th, 1908, in 
the seventy-sixth year of his age. 

He was not born in Maryland, but 
in 1841, when he was eight years old, 
he was brought by his parents from 
Vermont, the State of his nativity, to 
Maryland. 

He received his early education in 
our schools, was prepared for college 
at St. Timothy's Hall, near Catons- 
ville, and was graduated at Prince- 
ton, in the class of 1852. 

His unusual talents and attainments 
at school and college attracted spe- 
cial notice, and a future of usefulness 
and distinction was confidently pre- 
dicted. 

Choosing the law as his profession, 
he entered as a student of Law 
School of Harvard University at Cam- 
bridge, Massachusetts. Leaving this 
law school in 1853, he pursued his 
law studies in the city of Baltimore, 
principally in the office of Hon. 
Robert J. Brent, one of the most dis- 
tinguished of the lawyers of Mary- 
land of that generation, and but a 
short time previously, the Attorney 
General of the State; he was ad- 



mitted to the Bar on the 31st day of 
January, 1855, and almost imme- 
diately entered upon his subsequently 
brilliant and distinguished career. 

His first appearance in the Court 
of Appeals of Maryland was in the 
year 1856, in the important case of 
the Mayor and City Council of Balti- 
more vs. Marriott, reported in 9th 
Md., 160; the report of his argument 
in that case shows the same breadth 
of view, accompanied with acute ap- 
prehension of legal principles and for- 
cible and vigorous presentation of 
them which characterized him after- 
wards as well at the Bar as on the 
Bench. 

In the subsequent case of the Negro 
Watkins vs. State of Maryland, 14 
Md., 412, he gave further very marked 
proof of his ability, learning and 
logical power. 

During this same period he ap- 
peared several times before the Su- 
preme Court of the United States, 
and on every occasion verified the 
predictions of his friends, that he 
would assuredly attain high rank in 
his profession. 

His practice was not large during 
tbose early years, and he was, there- 
fore, enabled to devote his leisure 
to diligent and diversified study, and 
to the acquisition of the extensive 
learning and accomplishments which, 
at a later period of his life, became 
so conspicuous. 

But while at the Bar his arguments 
were characterized by great force 
and logical power, and where there 
was appropriate occasion for it they 
were lighted up with charming humor 
and wit. 



Participating most energetically in 
the political reform movement of 
1859, which in 1860 resulted in a com- 
plete change in our municipal gov- 
ernment, he was sent to the City 
Council from the Twelfth Ward at the 
same time that the late Hon. George 
William Brown was elected Mayor. 

At the breaking out of our Civil 
War, being drawn by conviction to 
the support of the Union side, he did 
not hesitate openly to give his ad- 
hesion to it, notwithstanding the 
severe struggle it cost him to sepa- 
rate himself from many friends in 
Baltimore with whom he was very 
closely associated, and who were 
strong sympathisers with the Con- 
federate cause. 

He accordingly accepted a commis- 
sion as lieutenant-colonel in the 
Seventh Regiment of Maryland Vol- 
unteers, of which he afterwards be- 
came colonel. 

He served in the army with great 
gallantry and distinction, receiving 
well-merited promotion for conspicu- 
ous courage, and having been seri- 
ously wounded in May, 1864, was fur- 
loughed on sick leave and returned 
home with the rank of brigadier-gen- 
eral. 

While thus temporarily detached 
from active service, he was elected to 
Congress from the Fourth Maryland 
Congressional District, succeeding 
Hon. Henry Winter Davis, and was 
re-elected for a second term in 1866. 

During his Congressional career he 
manifested that independence of 
judgment and action which was 
always a marked trait of his char- 
acter. 



The war having come to an end in 
the Spring of 1865, he took sides with 
President Andrew Johnson after the 
tragic and deeply lamented death of 
President Lincoln, and distinguished 
himself in Congress by refusing to 
follow his party in the radical re- 
construction measures of that event- 
ful period. 

Returning to private life he re- 
sumed the practice of his profession, 
and, with the exception of a service 
for some years as a Commissioner of 
Public Schools from his ward, held 
no office until in the popular up- 
raising of 1882, known as the "New 
Judge Movement," he was elected in 
November of that year as a member 
of the Supreme Bench of Baltimore 
City. 

He was re-elected in 1897 with prac- 
tical unanimity under the most grat- 
ifying evidence of confidence and es- 
teem, and served until May, 1908, 
when, in consequence of impaired 
physical health, he was retired by 
the General Assembly upon full pay 
for the residue of his term. 

While upon the Bench he was 
chosen, in 1884, by the Faculty of 
Law of the Universty of Maryland to 
the chair of "Equity Jurisprudence, 
Pleading and Practice," and dis- 
charged with great efficiency the du- 
ties of his professorship for twenty- 
three years, holding the attention of 
the students by his attractiveness and 
force of his lectures. He further sig- 
nalized his professorship by the pre- 
paration of the admirable work enti- 
tled "Juridical Equity," which is 
justly regarded as of distinguished 
merit. During the same period he 



wrote and published the fascinating 
book entitled "Falstafl and Equity." 

We have sketched this brief out- 
line of his life in order that someidea 
may be formed of his interesting and 
remarkable career. 

Reviewing his judicial career, we 
find an unblemished record of di- 
versified labors most faithfully, dili- 
gently and ably performed, by one 
whom all recognized to possess un- 
sullied integrity, profound learning 
and great mental power. 

Under our prevailing system of an- 
nual rotation of the Judges of the 
Supreme .Bench of Baltimore city, 
from court to court, Judge Phelps, 
during his long service of more than 
a quarter of a century, was called on 
to deal with every branch of the Law 
and Practice over which the State 
courts have jurisdiction. 

His experience, therefore, covered 
the widest range of subjects in equity, 
and at law both civil and criminal. 
In all this extensive field he habitually 
displayed a consummate mastery, 
which only a mind of great original 
force, aided by constant study, could 
acquire. 

Having been thoroughly grounded 
in the fundamental principles of juris- 
prudence, and having become famil- 
iar with all the stages of its steady 
development and with the best liter- 
ature of text books, and adjudicated 
cases, it may with exact truth be 
said, that he was at home in all 
branches of jurisprudence, with 
which he was required to deal. 

He took his seat upon the Bench in 
the full maturity of his power, but, 
ripened and enriched as those were 



then, he never abandoned his studi- 
ous habits. 

As thorough as was his mastery of 
the professional learning required for 
the efficient discharge of his judicial 
duties, he did not content himself 
with these acquirements; but, being 
by taste and habit a diligent student, 
he, by his wide range of reading and 
study in all departments of literature 
and other branches of learning, be- 
came a man of culture and scholarly 
attainments; and in the companion- 
ship of his books he found never fail- 
ing delight until within a few weeks 
of the end of his honorable, laborious 
and useful life. 

He was always guided by a deep 
sence of duty, had lofty ideals, and, 
what is more, made of those ideals a 
practical reality in the conspicuous 
excellence of his judicial work, his 
unwaivering impartiality, his kind 
and courteous demeanor to his 
brethren of the Bench, and the mem- 
bers of the Bar, and the perfect in- 
tegrity and purity of his private life. 

The essential kindness of his heart, 
and his charming personality, en- 
deared him to all his friends. It will 
always be a cause of joy to those 
to whom the memory of Charles E. 
Phelps is dear, to remember that be 
had the comforts of a happy home; 
that he was a most devoted son, hus- 
band and father; and that it was 
given to him, before he was called 
away from those whom he loved so 
dearly, to see all of his sons grown 
to manhood, and honorably and suc- 
cessfully following the callings they 
had respectively chosen for their life 
work. 



Some of us knew him in the open- 
ing years of his aspiring manhood 
and through the long intervening 
years, until the infirmities of age di- 
minished the elasticity of his step with- 
out dimming the brightness of his eye 
or impairing the vigor of bis intellect; 
but all of us who knew him will car- 
ry with us to the end of our lives de- 
lightful recollections of his sparkling 
wit, his genial humor and the rich 
treasures of his sincere and cordial 
friendship. 

His brethren of the Bar admired, 
esteemed and loved him in life, and 
now that he has been called to his 
blessed and eternal rest, we pause 
for a space in our work and ask your 
honors to place upon the records of 
the court, whose honor and reputa- 
tion he so loftily maintained, this 
Memorial of our sincere respect and 
affection, and our deep thankfulness 
for the inspiring example of his use- 
ful, honorable and distinguished 
career. 

Mr. Carter was followed by the 
following named gentlemen, whose 
addresses appear in the order in 
which they were delivered: 

ATTORNEY-GENERAL BONAPARTE . 

May it please your Honors. 

The Bench of Maryland has lost a 
jurist, the State has lost a citizen 
whose virtues, whose talents and 
whose public services demand men- 
tion from you, from the Bar of the 
city and from all good men in our 
community. When a very young man, 
as throughout his life, Judge Phelps 
was already noted forhis public spirit 
and unselfish interest in our city's 



welfare; when the outbreak of civil 
war reminded every patriotic Ameri- 
can that he was of right asoldier await- 
ing his Country's call, Judge Phelps 
answered that call and paid in full 
his debt of faithful and gallant ser- 
vice. Returned to civil life and the 
practice of his profession, he earned 
again and promptly gained the admir- 
ation, the respect and the confidence 
of his brethren of the Bar, his clients 
and his fellow citizens. After credit- 
ably representing his district in 
Congress, and fulfilling other 
weighty public trusts, he was ele- 
vated to the Bench by a large 
popular majority, without regard 
to party differences or political 
opinions, and again he amply justified 
the voters choice and established 
a new claim to the people's gratitude; 
his virtually unanimous re-election, 
the extension of his term, and the 
exceptional provision for his hon- 
orable retirement, were an appro- 
priate, though inadequate, recog- 
nition of all he had done and 
all he had been as a Judge. 
While conscientiously meeting the 
heavy demands of his public duties, 
he yet found time for literature, 
both legal and general; he will be 
remembered as an author and a 
teacher, no less than as a lawyer, a 
soldier, a law giver and a Judge. 
In brief, he was a truly worthy 
citizen, one who bore wellnigh every 
burden of public duty which may 
await an American freeman, and bore 
every burden well. Add but a thought 
of the purity of his private life, of his 
unsullied honor in all relations with 
his fellow men, and your Honors 



have before you a character and a 
record which compel a just tribute of 
praise from a Bench, a Bar and a 
people deserving the fellowship of 
such a man. 



ATTORNEY-GENERAL STRAUS. 

May it please your Honors: 

I also respectfully beg to second 
the motion that the Memorial which 
has been read be entered upon the 
Records of the Court. 

Every member of the Bar of Mary- 
land is deeply grieved by the decease 
of Judge Phelps. We have all, with- 
out exception, a profound sense of 
an official as well as a personal loss, 
which time itself can never repair. 
A jurist, a soldier, a scholar, an 
author, an educator, a friend, a man 
like Charles E. Phelps could not be 
removed by death from the com- 
munity, from his family, from his 
friends and from the high place his 
virtues and genius adorned so long, 
without leaving the hearts of all who 
knew him stricken and bowed down 
with unutterable sorrow. 

We are here, all of us, the dis- 
tinguished members of this august 
court, the eminent practitioners 
seated at this table, this dignified 
and numerous assemblage of the 
learned members of our justly re- 
spected Bar, we have all come into 
this hall of justice hallowed as the 
forum of his great and beneficent 
judgments to pay reverend and af- 
fectionate tribute to the memory of our 
illustrious and lamented dead. And 
yet on this occasion how ineffective, 
how impotent are mere words to ex- 



press what we know and what we 
feel. There never existed nobler 
manhood than was his; there never 
was finer quality than his; the rarest 
virtues and talents reached their sum- 
mit in him, and gave a mighty weight 
to his intellect and a peculiar great- 
ness to his character, which only the 
finest powers of description, if any, 
could realistically portray. 

Think of him for a moment, sitting 
upon the Bench, as Erskine said of 
Mansfield, the "Figure and form of 
Justice." As memory brings his 
image back, what is it, in its true 
analysis, we see? Is it not literally 
the impersonation of the very highest 
conceptions of life and its obliga- 
tions, of manly, noble, perfect 
fidelity and devotion to duty, 
every emotion, every thought, every 
motive so stainless, so pure, so white 
as to be indistinguishable from the 
ermine he wore? His conception of 
life— that life is duty, and that its 
supreme dignity is in the discharge 
of duty— that is the lesson of his 
character and career. 

His accomplishments were wonder- 
ful. 

The depth and catholicity of his 
culture made his conversation as edi- 
fying as it was charming. He would 
have been a brilliant ornament to the 
intellectual circles of any country in 
any age. The fascinations of his 
literary powers were appreciated and 
acknowledged by the most critical 
scholarship on both sides of the 
Atlantic Ocean. 

His "One of the Missing" contains 
true episode as thrilling and-dramatic 
and told in English as perfect and 



realistic as anything in the writings 
of Defoe or Smollett, or Scott or Ste- 
venson. His learning embraced al- 
most every field of erudition. 

I heard him once in conversation 
and extemporaneously discuss the 
various systems of ethics and meta- 
physics in a way that made it evi- 
dent that he could have filled a chair 
on those subjects in any university 
as thoroughly as he did that of 
Equity Jurisprudence in the Alma 
Mater of most of us who are here. 

The qualities of his mind, his 
strength and hardihood, his patriot- 
ism and his unsurpassed courage, 
both moral and physical, made him 
an ideal soldier. It is remarkable 
that a man so excelling in literature 
and the humanities should have also 
excelled in arms. But he was fash- 
ioned after the first characters of 
antiquity— upon the finest models of 
heroic times which those very char- 
acters have immortalized in history 
as the classic ages. 

Pericles, Aristides and Xenophon 
were soldiers, statesmen and litera- 
turs; and so were Scipio and the 
Gracchi and Caesar at Rome. With 
the same die and the same "form and 
pressure" Nature had moulded 
Charles E. Phelps. He was one of 
"Plutarch's Men," illustrating in the 
field, in the forum, as well as in his 
private walk and conversation the 
worth, the elevation and the majesty 
of life. 

It is, however, as the great judge, 
as a most distinguished member for 
twenty-six years of Your Honors' 
tribunal that he will be best remem- 
bered by the profession and by the 



people. Of his wisdom, justice and 
learning in the performance of his 
judicial duties, as well as of 
the great and enduring import- 
ance of his innumerable judg- 
ments, I am sure Your Honors will 
agree that the Memorial Minute 
speaks not only without exaggera- 
tion but in terms of impressive moder- 
ation and restraint. No man, now, 
or hereafter, shall ever be ableto say 
fully how far and with what benign and 
wholesome authority the influence of 
his judicial services and example shall 
penetrate the unending future. One 
thing is certain— long, long after his 
heroic ashes shall have returned to 
their primordial dust, his name and 
memory shall remain and still remain 
sacred to the veneration of the wise, 
the good and the just. 

To his sorrowing and stricken fam- 
ily, the full sympathy of all of us 
goes out for their ineffable bereave- 
ment and irreparable loss. But be- 
sides the assuagement their, grief shall 
find in the consolations and the prom- 
ise of the holy religion of their church, 
there must surely be some further 
surcease of their sorrow, as they re- 
call the infinite benison and blessing 
of his devoted, loving and exemplary 
life. 



MR. GEORGE WHITELOCK. 

The Nation, the State and the Bar 
—each claims Charles E. Phelps in 
virtue of theeminent service which he 
rendered it. The United States and 
the State of Maryland, through their 
respective Attorneys General, and 
the Bar by its leader have appropri- 
ately registered their appreciation of 



a citizen who realized the ideals of 
citizenshipin the discharge of its high- 
est functions. Little can be added 
to the tributes thus paid. Charles E. 
Phelps possessed the equipment of 
high motive, native ability, exceptional 
training and unflagging industry. 
His attainment of professional pre- 
eminence was inevitable. It had been 
predicted by Judge Mason upon his 
first appearance at twenty-three years 
of age in the Court of Appeals. 

His success in that tribunal was 
immediate and remarkable. Con- 
fronted by adversaries of special 
distinction, he gained every one 
of the five cases which he argued be- 
fore the civil war. Out of a total of 
sixteen causes in which he appeared 
as counsel prior to his own elevation 
to the Bench, eleven victories stand 
to his credit. 

Judge Phelps has hardly left a seat 
by the side of your Honors. His ju- 
dicial work requires no extended 
eulogium where the shadow of his 
name as a magistrate falls upon the 
records of twenty-five years. 

We cherish the memory of his pro- 
found learning, his great acumen, his 
exalted character, his sterling impar- 
tiality, his intense conviction of duty, 
and his courage to do the right as 
God gave him to see it. 

Patriotism permeated the whole be- 
ing of Charles E. Phelps. He be- 
lieved and declared that military vir- 
tue forms and through all history has 
formed the substratum of every re- 
spectable national character under 
whatever form of government. In 
such faith, his loyalty and his 
gallantry carried him when a 



young man of thirty to the din and 
clash of battle— to the firing line 
itself. His were the proud memories 
of valor and friendship and the sad 
memories of fraternal strife. Re- 
joicing with his whole heart in the 
triumph of what he deemed the right- 
eouscause,therewas no touch of male- 
volence or enmity for those who had 
differed with him. And neither his 
military instincts or experience nor 
yet the divergent views of his late 
comrades in arms, prevented his 
support in Congress of President 
Johnson or his opposition to negro 
suffrage or Southern Reconstruction. 

He said to his former foes in gray, 
at the unvailing of the monument to 
the southern dead at Front Royal, 
Virginia; "Never were men more de- 
serving of honor, than the soldiers of 
the Confederate Army, whose four 
years of heroic devotion to the prin- 
ciples they believed to be right, 
stands unequaled in history." 

In his Centennial oration he pro- 
fessed an abiding faith in the arms 
of America, and as he paid eloquent 
tribute to the patriotism of Charles 
Carroll of Carrollton, proclaimed his 
own. He said: "In lofty devotion 
to principle, in the spirit of 
resistance to supposed aggression, 
in courage to assert and vindi- 
cate cherished rights, in firmness, 
fortitude and heroism, the testimony 
comes from the bloody fields of tne 
Civil War, that the American people, 
both North and South, are the same 
in every quality of rugged manhood 
with the men who clubbed their mus- 
kets at Bunker Hill, or charged witn 
Marion and Sumter." 



Not only the gift of patriotism, but 
the gift of letters in rare degree was 
his assured possession. Literature 
was his passion. Language was to 
him an art and a science which never 
lost its fascination. He was dra- 
matic, witty, humorous. Tacitus 
was his model of style; from the 
Latin writer he derived a dislike 
of redundancy. History and me- 
moirs were especially attractive to 
him. Shakespeare was his study and 
delight; Boswell's Johnson, Plut- 
arch's Lives and Pepys' Dairy were 
favorites in English,— the frank and 
lucid Montaigne in French. He read 
the literature of France iu the orig- 
inal almost as constantly as he read 
our own, and he drew inspiration 
from the classic authors of antiquity 
whom he quoted aptly and accu- 
rately. 

In 1858 he was one of three young 
men to found a paper known as "The 
Exchange." His Juridical Equity 
(1894) and his Falstaff and Equity 
(1901) attest his erudition, his cul- 
ture, and his faculty of felicit- 
ous expression. His formal opinions 
as a judge, his report on the 
change in our police system (1861), 
his address at Dubuque on Planetary 
Motion and Solar Heat (1872); his 
oration at the Baltimore Sesqui-Cen- 
tential (1880) ; his treatise on the Pro- 
vincial Judiciary of Maryland, writ- 
ten for the State Bar Association 
(1897), demonstrate his tireless in- 
dustry, his scholarly knowlege and 
his civic pride. 

In the memorial of Severn leackle 
Wallis before tbe Maryland Histori- 
cal Society, his chaste and spirited 



English rises to eloquence. We can 
say of him, in the words which he ap- 
plied to Mr. Wallis: "Public con- 
science cannot be drugged, patriotism 
cannot be sapped, in a community 
that admires such a life, applauds 
such a character and reveres such a 
memory." 

We turn the pages of a volume in 
which Charles E. Phelps has pre- 
served the memorials of fifty event- 
ful years, given generously to the 
country which he loved, and mark 
the record "Passed"— "Summa cum 
Jawde." 

Looking, in his honorable retire- 
ment, into the vague land and prepared 
to experience the last curiosity, our 
Maryland soldier and judge himself 
closed the volume with these modest 
words of acceptance and of faith. 

No task have we begun 
But other hands can take; 

No work beneath the sun 
For which we need to wake. 

We lay us down to sleep, 
And leave to God the rest; 

Whether to wake and weep, 
Or wake no more be best. 



MR. ARTHUR W. MACHEM. 

May it please your Honors: 

At best, the fame that it is possible 
to win at the Bar must be short-lived, 
and even the Judge, who is lifted 
into public view and deservedly ob- 
tains in larger measure the respect 
and esteem of his own generation, 
seldom has it given to him to carve 
for himself a lasting name— to erect 
the monumemtum aere perrennius . It 
behooves us, however, in the case of 
one so noteworthy as the late Judge 
Phelps to try to perpetuate his mem- 



10 



ory, and postpone, at least, that com- 
mon fate of oblivion, or dim andshad- 
owy recollection which differs little 
from utter oblivion, which is perhaps 
inevitable ultimately. If in no other 
way, the present memorial may serve 
a useful purpose in stimulating those 
who enjoy the happy privilege of 
youth to imitate his virtues of in- 
domitable industry, patient research, 
enthusiastic devotion to law as a 
science, and unswerving rectitude, 
which so largely contributed to make 
him eminent. 

My own acquaintance with Judge 
Phelps began, as I recollect, in the 
year 1853. After one year spent at 
the Harvard Law School, he elected 
to complete his preparation for the 
Bar in the office of Mr. Robert J. 
Brent, which he entered about the 
time when I made Baltimore my 
home. The particularly friendly in- 
tercourse which soon arose between 
us was due in part, no doubt, 
to the fact of our common recent, 
though not simultaneous, experience 
of the methods of the Cambridge 
Law School. It will be remembered 
that there was no law school existing 
in Baltimore at that time. He en- 
tered the Harvard School just as I 
was quitting it. But apart from this 
circumstance, conditionsthen favored 
a closer friendly intimacy and inter- 
course among the young lawyers and 
advanced students of law than, per- 
haps, is now possible. Then the 
whole Common Law jurisdiction in 
civil cases of over $5u0 in amount 
was in one court, where, conse- 
quently almost all trials of import- 
ance and special interest were 



expected to take place. Attend- 
ance upon the Superior Court, 
whether we respectively had cases 
pending on its docket or not, 
was treated as a matter of course. 
It was our school, and there we 
sought to learn law in theory as well 
as practice, observing how the trials 
were conducted by the acknowledged 
leaders, Reverdy Johnson, William 
Schley and others. After the daily 
sessions of court, it was usual to meet 
more or less frequently in parties of 
two or three, as it happened, and dis- 
cuss points which had been raised. 
In the contemporary group of the 
score or so of young lawyers into 
which Judge Phelps then entersd, his 
forceful character, his lofty ideals, 
his charm of literary culture, his zeal 
in the pursuit of legal principles, his 
great intellectual powers, and the 
probability which the possession of 
these qualities gave of eminent suc- 
cess, were recognized from the 
first. It was, therefore, easy for us 
who then had the benefit of intimacy 
with him to recognize his right to 
take a place among the foremost in 
the profession. In the unhappy 
period of the Civil War followed by 
his two terms as a representative in 
Congress, he was necessarily to a 
certain extent removed from active 
practice, but upon his complete re- 
turn to his best loved and chosen 
profession, it was apparent that he 
resumed it with the same ardor, the 
same thoroughness of reading, and 
the same mastery of principles which 
had marked him in the rosy-hued 
ante-bellum period when it was 
supposed that the work of the 



11 



fathers might be carried on in 
peace undisturbed by civil strife 
and the attendant clouds of bitter- 
ness, anxiety and sorrow. Times had 
changed, but he had not changed 
with them, and, with a certain Ro- 
man constancy, the Phelps of the 
early time, was present among us to 
fulfill the expectations of his friends. 
Of his subsequent elevation to the 
Bench, it may be truly said that the 
requirement of the Constitution that 
the judge must be "selected from 
those who have been admitted to 
practice law in this State, who are 
most distinguished for integrity, wis- 
dom and sound legal knowledge," 
was fulfilled with exactness. Of his 
distinguished public service as a 
judge, and of his later achievements, 
it is not necessary for me to speak, 
or attempt to add to what is said in 
the memorial. But knowing him 
as I did from his early man 
hood, I may be permitted to 
express my admiration of a charac- 
ter lofty and spotless, full of charm 
to his friends— most admirable and 
most attractive to those who knew 
him best, and of my sorrow at his 
departure from us— a decease which, 
although it has occurred at the full- 
ness of the ordinary years of man's 
life and after life's work well per- 
formed and rounded out, must still 
be regarded by the friends he has 
left as untimely. 



MR. THOMAS MACKENZIE. 

Your Honors: 

I feel that I can not allow this occa- 
sion to pass without rising to second 



the adoption of the memorial of re- 
spect and love to Judge Phelps which 
has been prepared for this meeting, 
and I feel this, not only because of 
the fact that the earliest introduc- 
tion I had to the study of the law was 
under the guidance of him whose 
memory we are here to honor, when 
he and the late lamented John V. L. 
Findlay were partners, but because 
of a friendship formed at that time, 
and cemented by the acquaintance of 
after years, which has never ceased 
to impress me with the value of such 
an educational advantage. 

It was not only then I observed how 
strong and sincere was the love— not 
friendship alone, but love in its full- 
est sense— like unto that recorded of 
Jonathan and David, existing between 
these two partners, but when the one 
was elected to the Bench, and it be- 
came my privilege thereafter to be 
associated for so many years with the 
other, I had the opportunity of ob- 
serving further how that love they 
bore each other, wavered not nor 
weakened as the years of separation 
increased, but only became deeper 
and more intense. 

I shall never forget my interview 
with Judge Phelps, on the passing 
away of Mr. Findlay, when I in- 
formed him of the death which had 
finally severed the earthly tie be- 
tween them. Seated in his private 
room in the Court House, his eyes 
suffused with tears, his voice trem- 
bling with emotion, it was as much 
as he could do to speak of him whom 
he loved as dearly as a brother. 
Knowing the strength of this tie 
which bound them both, and what 



12 



would be the feelings of Mr. Findlay 
were he with us to-day, I, as an hum- 
ble representatives of the office they 
founded, wish to pay this tribute of 
respect. 

It was a privilege indeed to any 
student of the law, to be permitted 
to study his profession in an office 
where the atmosphere surrounding 
him, as in that of Phelps & Findlay, 
gave evidence, not only of an affec- 
tionate accord between the partners, 
but as well of the observance of the 
strictest rules of integrity, showing 
their every act to be prompted by a 
motive of the purest type. 

Ordinarily Judge Phelps was not 
easibly approachable, even by his in- 
timate acquaintances, a result, no 
doubt, of the studious habits of his 
life. Yet no one ever met him with- 
out feeling the power of his sterling 
uprightness, and his incorruptible ad- 
herence to all that expression im- 
plies, and every now and then see- 
ing, like bursts of beautiful sunshine, 
glimpses of the great tenderness and 
kindliness of a nature full of sympa- 
thy and affection. 

By his deep learning, his field of 
wide research explored to the father- 
most limit, be was ever ready to help 
by wise suggestion in the un- 
raveling of problems which at 
first appeared to the student 
intricate and full of difficulty. 
In him that faculty by which 
man draws conclusions, and de- 
termines right and truth, was 
highly developed. It was this won- 
derful power of his clear and 
orderly mind, making all things to 
him as an open book, that qualified 



him so well to impart knowledge, and 
which, combined with his love of 
truth and justice, and his innate fair- 
ness and impartiality, made him the 
ideal judge, beloved by all. 

It was the appreciation of these 
qualities that prompted Mr. Findlay, 
when the name of Judge Phelps was 
first mentioned for the ermine, to say 
to some one speaking of the nomina- 
tion, "You might as well walk up 
Charles street and not Bee Washing- 
ton's Monument, as not to recognize 
his entire and pre-eminent fitness for 
the judgeship." 

Of his ability as a lawyer, and his 
upright rulings on the Bench, we are 
all here to attest, but the public rec- 
ord he has left behind him is stronger 
even than anything we can say. 

It is not, therefore, as to those mat- 
ters I wish to speak, but I desire to 
add my testimony to the generous 
and noble characteristics of the man, 
which made his life an inspiration to 
his fellow-men, and an example for 
the generations to come. 

Following the discipline of the sol- 
dier, the course he marked for him- 
self in his life as a civilian was shaped 
with a strict regard to carrying out 
that which he knew to be right. 
Nothing in the face of struggle 
daunted him. Nothing in the 
light of conscious rectitude could 
sway him from the performance of 
that which he knew to be a duty. 

Favoring no one more than an- 
other, nor seeking to win smiles or 
plaudits, he steadily pursued during 
his whole career an unbending rule 
of honest living and upright conduct 
that made him fearless of the world. 



13 



And it was this sense of safety that 
no doubt appealed to him in those 
lines of his favorite poem — 

" calm and peaceful shall I sleep. 

Rocked in the cradle of the deep." 



HON. JOHN PRENTISS POE. 

The distinguishing traits of Judge 
Phelps' character and the inspiring 
excellence of his work have been so 
well and feelingly portrayed that if I 
were entirely at liberty to consult my 
inclination, I would rather commune 
with my thoughts and be still than 
attempt to add anything to the beau- 
tiful and impressive eulogies to which 
we have just listened. 

But, your Honors, the memories of 
a cherished friendship of my open- 
ing years at the Bar, before the fierce 
discords of fratricidal strife dis- 
solved for a time the sweet com- 
munion of congenial professional toil 
and aspirations, throng upon me and 
constrain me to speak of the way in 
which, from beginning to end, as 
ever in the great Taskmaster's eye, 
our lamented friend walked with 
pure heart and resolute independence 
in the path of commanding duty and 
honor. 

In his long, varied and distinguish- 
ed career he exhibited qualities 
which, by common consent, consti- 
tute the best type of manhood. 

Espousing with patriotic ardor the 
cause of the Union in our great civil 
war, he displayed conspicuous gallan- 
try in every vicissitude of victory 
and defeat, and, by his coolness and 
courage on the field of battle, deserv- 
edly won high distinction as a brave 
and able commander. 



His magnanimity was as striking 
as his courage and his generous 
demeanor after the war towards the 
vanquished indicated a chivalric 
nobility of spirit, worthy of the age 
of Knighthood's richest flower. 

He was punctiliously faithful and 
just in the discharge of the duties of 
every post of trust and responsibility 
to which, from time to time, he was 
called. 

These virtues— courage, magnani- 
mity, fidelity, truth, honor — so strik- 
ingly displayed, were sufficient to 
stamp him early as a leader amongst 
men, and accompanied, as they were 
by other signal proofs of unusual 
superiority, earned for him his high 
public recognition as a gentleman 
and soldier, without fear, as he was 
without reproach. 

He was, moreover, gifted with an 
uncommonly robust and discriminat- 
ing intellect, which he strengthened 
and enriched by assiduous cultiva- 
tion, not only in all the branches of 
his chosen and cherished profession, 
but in many other wide fields of 
science, scholarship and learning, 
and thus, by an unwearied diligence 
extending through his whole life, he 
became one of the most accomplished 
jurists who have ever adorned our 
Bench. 

Illuminating and regulating this 
vigorous and cultivated intellect, 
there dwelt in him a moral sense of 
singular keenness and power, and by 
this most admirable combination of 
the stimulating forces of a highly en- 
lightened and sensitive conscience 
with pre-eminent mental endow- 
ments and attainments, he was 



14 



equipped in a remarkable degree for 
his life's best work. 

To this work he dedicated his 
steadily expanding faculties for more 
than a quarter of a century, and by 
his pure, impartial and most efficient 
administration of justice won, as he 
deserved, the confidence and affec- 
tion of our whole community, and 
entitled himself to the homage and 
praise which you, his associates of 
the Bench, and we, his brethren of 
the Bar, now deem it a privilege as 
well as a duty to render to his cher- 
ished memory. 

With all his capacity and learning 
he was wholly free from the disfigur- 
ing self-assertion which so frequently 
accompanies unusual gifts and ac- 
quirements, his unaffected modesty 
being always as noteworthy as were 
his surpassing merits. 

His demeanor on the Bench was 
marked by serene patience and dig- 
nity, sometimes seemingly a trifle 
austere, but his natural benignity and 
courtesy always predominated, while 
flashes of wit and quiet humor, which 
he invariably kept within the bounds 
of judicial decorum, were sure to ap- 
pear when the dulness of the work of 
the trial table became oppressive. 

He grasped with wonderful clear- 
ness and quickness of perception 
the questions involved. 

His opinions, both oral and written, 
were characterized by a peculiar 
force and originality of style, giving 
convincing proofs of his thorough 
mastery of our noble tongue and his 
close intimacy with the best models 
of purest English undefiled. 

As if rejoicing in this inspiring in- 



timacy, he, from time to time, yielded 
to the alluring voice of the spirit of 
authorship that struggled so strongly 
within him, and, in the fascinating 
productions of his brillliant pen, 
demonstrated what he might easily 
have achieved in the rich fields of 
literary labor had the wings on which 
he might have soared to the sky been 
free from the fetters that fixed him 
to the earth. 

Did time allow, I should be glad to 
turn to the purely personal side of 
this accomplished gentleman and 
Judge, and speak with fulness of 
merited praise of his rich and varied 
scholarship, and of his charming and 
most winning companionship in the 
delightful intercourse of private life. 

I feel that I have some qualifica- 
tions for this, for soon after my re- 
turn from Princeton, our common 
Alma Mater, I learned to admire and 
esteem him as a young member of 
the Bar, of whose future distinction 
the highest hopes were then enter- 
tained, and who fully justified these 
hopes, in the very beginning of his 
career, by the power of his persua- 
sive oratory, by his ready and afflu- 
ent diction, and by the union, in a 
very rare degree, of the forces of the 
severest logic with the graces of the 
most attractive rhetoric. 

From that time until his recent 
withdrawal from the Bench, with but 
a brief interruption during the war, 
it is a delight to remember that we 
were friends whose kindly feelings 
towards each other grew warmer and 
warmer in our intimacy as associates 
in public service, and as fellow- 
workers for twenty-three years in 



15 



the Law School of the University of 
Maryland. 

These delightful memories covering 
so long a period crowd upon me now, 
but I cannot allow myself to dwell 
upon them. 

They are garnered in my heart, 
there to be tenderly treasured by the 
side of other similar sweet recollec- 
tions, until the hour when 

"Casting one longing, lingering look be- 
hind;" 

I too shall be called to 

"Leave the warm precincts of the cheerful 
day;" 

And then I pray that I may be per- 
mitted to whisper, as I love to fancy 
he whispered ere his spirit winged 
its flight, 

"Twilight and evening bell 

And after that the dark. 
And may there be no sadness of farewell 

When I embark. 
For though from out our bourne of time 
and place 

The flood may bear me far. 
I hope to meet my Pilot face to face 

When I have crossed the Bar." 



Chief Judge Harlan, who responded 
on behalf of the Bench, paid Judge 
Phelps the following tribute: 
Charles E. Phelps, a prominent 
citizen of this commonwealth; for 
more than twenty-five years an emi- 
nent member of this court; distin- 
guished as soldier, scholar, author, 
lawyer, judge; greatly beloved and 
honored; after a life of endeavor, 
prolonged beyond the allotted age of 
man, has reached the end of his jour- 
ney. And his brethren of the bar 
and bench have met to pay their 
tribute to his work and worth. 



The Bar has spoken, by its pres- 
ence, and in words eloquent of admi- 
ration, respect and affectionate re- 
membrance. The just and temperate 
memorial minute presented on its be- 
half, which meets with our full ap- 
proval, will be received and placed 
among the records of the court, thac 
it may be preserved for posterity. 

A gifted orator has called attention 
to the value of memorials in these 
words: "The literature of many lands 
is rich with the tributes that grati- 
tude and admiration and love have 
paid to the great and honored dead. 
These tributes disclose the character 
of nations, the ideals of the human 
race. In them is found the estimates 
of greatness, the deeds and lives that 
challenge praise and thrill the hearts 
of men." 

Judge Phelps needs no eulogy from 
us, but the members of this Bench 
would be false to their feelings did 
they fail to add their tribute to that 
of the Bar. 

He holds an enviable place in the 
nation's history. His military ser- 
vices in the cause of the Union, 
which he espoused, and his valor in 
battle, won for him the lasting esteem 
of his comrades in arms, and the 
recognition of Congress. But we 
love to dwell more upon his 
generous chivalry when the war 
was over, and upon the nobil- 
ity of a nature that could put 
aside the prejudices and passions 
born of conflict, and withhold neither 
praise nor justice from the van- 
quished, than we do upon a superb 
courage, which was not mere fear- 
lessness, but the moral strength to 



16 



face a realized danger in the per- 
formance of duty. For his country, 
if need be, he would have given his 
life, but he believed in brotherly love 
and charity, and his actions accorded 
with his faith. 

He stood for culture and refine- 
ment, for scholarship, for purity in 
public and privite lite, for righteous- 
ness and justice, for cheerfulness 
and rational enjoyment, for fidelity 
to duty, for honor, for integrity, for 
Christian character. He was indus- 
trious, learned, accomplished. He 
loved good literature, and he wrote 
with charming originality and fresh- 
ness of style. 

As a jurist, we recognize that he 
easily takes rank as the peer of any 
man who has sat upon this bench. 
He brought to the performance of 
the duties of the judicial office native 
ability; an accurate and thorough 
knowledge of the history and princi- 
ples of our jurisprudence, legal 
and equitable; a clear insight 
into the springs of human ac- 
tion; a richly stored and an 
impartial mind; a ready com- 
prehension; a dignified, though some- 
what stern, presence; a strong sense 
ofjustice; a desire to hear fully, to 
investigate thoroughly, to decide cor- 
rectly; an inflexible purpose to as- 
certain truth, to maintain the right, 
to protect the oppressed, to detect 
and punisn wrong; a patience that 



was unwearied, a courtesy that was 
unfailing. 

With such equipment, such ideals, 
such purposes, it is not singular that 
he won universal confidence and re- 
spect, or that, after a service of fif- 
teen years, he was re-elected for an 
additional term, without opposition 
from any quarter. 

Those of us who were privileged to 
serve with him— and some of us 
served with him for nearly twenty 
years — learned to know well his 
sterling qualities, and highly valued 
his friedship. As we recall his at- 
tractive and interesting personality, 
his readiness to discharge any duty 
assigned to him irrespective of per- 
sonal consideration, his frank and 
kindly disposition, his fine humor 
and sense of honor, his help 
in consultation, the unbroken asso- 
ciation of years, counsel asked 
and aid given, our hearts are touched 
with sorrow, and our sympathy goes 
out to those upon whom, by reason 
of more tender ties, the shadow of 
grief has most deeply fallen. 

He lived his life nobly, and, coura- 
geous to the last, unshrinkingly, with 
mind unclouded, in his own home, 
attended by those he loved, he enter- 
ed into rest. And he has left us the 
memory of one who was faithful to 
all the relations of life— a just and 
righteous judge, a brave, honest, 
true-hearted, Christian gentleman. 



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